(Supplied: Grande Prairie Public School Division, Facebook)

By Abby Zieverink

GPPSD early learning

GPPSD gearing up for accelerated early learning following COVID-19 learning disruptions

Sep 13, 2021 | 4:58 PM

The Grande Prairie Public School Division (GPPSD) is gearing up to start its early intervention program with a goal to target accelerated learning for students who may have fallen behind during the pandemic.

GPPSD officials say the program is set to get underway at the beginning of October and will focus on literacy and numeracy skills. The program will take 16-weeks and provide identified students with additional supports in K-6 and K-8 schools.

Board Chair John Lehners says the school division is currently underway in its testing to see where students are at. He says from there, they will receive details on which students may need additional help from the program.

“I’ll be curious when the data comes back as to where we’re at with our students because we do a lot of assessment testing to figure that out, and we’re going to do what we can to close that gap and keep our students healthy in school,” he said.

Division officials say it will involve teams of teachers and educational assistants to work with classroom teachers and teams to target specifically literacy and numeracy interventions among students identified in testing.

Lehners says the additional support teachers will work with the child individually to eliminate the learning gaps caused by the pandemic with online classes. He believes it was difficult to keep many students engaged during the pandemic, which in turn, affected students’ education.

“I think with COVID, I think most people understand that there were some learning gaps and some people were able to learn at home and others struggled so we’re just trying to make sure we bring back those students to where they were and where they could be.”

Lehners added it is also dependant on the student’s ability to connect to their classes at home, the parent/guardian support, and the child’s interest.

“They rely heavily on that social aspect, and without that, they have definitely identified some educational gaps, and we want to do whatever we can to make sure every child has a fair putting.”

This comes after Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Minister of Education Adriana LaGrange announced a $45 million, aimed at closing the gap on pandemic learning loss for students in grades 1-3 based on modeling and input.

For GPPSD students, division officials suggest that roughly 600 students in the school division, are expected to receive the enhanced intervention this year.

Lehners says the funding from the province, which is set to help close the learning gap for grade 1-3 students, is crucial as those are what he calls ‘formative years’ in their education for literacy and numeracy.

“Teaching someone to read and do some of that early numeracy is tricky without someone basically holding your hand throughout the purpose,” said Lehners.

“We did realize putting a child in front of a teacher is still the best way to teach that child, there’s definitely a gap, and we’ll do what we can to close it.”

GPPSD says the education intervention program, which is set to start early in October, will run until the end of the 2021/2022 school year.